#11 - The trip home (a 55 hour saga)

My trip home was painful.
I left Mysore at 3pm (3:30am CST). Drove down to Bangalore pretty fast, had dinner at TGI Friday's with my friends, then headed to the airport. This is where the aggravation started. Now, all airlines allow people to have one carry-on and a "personal item" like a laptop. India now has a rule that you can only bring on one item, period. I wasn't about to check my laptop, but I didn't want to check my carry-on, either. I ended up having to put my laptop in my carry-on, and throw my laptop bag in one of my checked bags. Of course, this put it overweight, which costs $50, but is reimburseable.
So the first flight, Bangalore to Frankfurt, was fine. Late departure, as always at the Bangalore airport, but not too bad. Got to Frankfurt, had some sausages, then got on my next flight.
Now, just before we were due to depart, the pilot came on and said, "We've got a little problem. The intercom that we use to talk to the flight attendants is down. It's been on the fritz for a couple of days and it just went out completely. There's a part we have to replace." We sit there for a good 45 minutes, then we hear "Well, we know the part is at the airport, but we can't find it. We'll keep you updated." Another 45 minutes: "We found the part, and we're installing it, should take about 20 minutes." Half an hour later: "We've got the part installed, now we have to download the software onto it, should be only 10 more minutes." Another 20 minutes: "Well, it turned out we were only downloading onto the central computer. Now the computer has to download it to the part." Ugh. We took off 3 hours late, after sitting on the plane the whole time - so it was, in effect, a 13 hour flight.
So I missed my connecting flight. On the plane, they said they already rebooked us, and we only had to go to the Easy Check-in booth to get our new boarding pass. So we land in Chicago, and I have to get my bags because we all went through customs there (to connect to our domestic flights). It took forever to get my bags. 747s are huge! It was a full flight, and so the number of bags on the plane was enormous. But, I finally got my bags, went through customs without a hitch (even though I had checked the 'fruits, vegetables, food' box on the form because I had tea in my bags), and tried to check in. Flight at 8:05pm - and it was 7:45. "Too late for check-in", it told me. So I got in line for the counter. Then I realized I had left my flight documents folder on the check-in kiosk. I looked over, and it was gone. Nothing essential was in it, except the receipt for my excess baggage, so I can't get reimbursed for that. United said, "You're now booked on a flight for 8am tomorrow. Here's a hotel voucher."
So then I had to go get on a shuttle bus to the Wyndham. And this was outside, and I didn't have any warm clothes, only my t-shirt (my parents were to have met me in Minneapolis with my winter coat). The Wyndham was nice, and it turned out a friend of mine headed to Alaska was there, having been rebooked to an 8am flight also.
The next day, on my flight to Minneapolis (which turned out to have another friend of mine on it), they told us about 10 minutes before the scheduled departure, "Um, so, the pilots aren't here yet. They're going to get here in about half an hour." (Hey, it's just like India!) We waited in line for the runway for a while, too, so we took off about an hour late.
Finally, we were on approach to MSP. I was so close to home. I was just feeling relieved, knowing it was all over, when the plane suddenly tilted up, the engines spooled up, and we start to go up. The pilot came on: "There was a plane still on the runway with mechanical problems. We'll circle around and try again." It was like India followed me home. Nothing could be easy. Everything had to take longer than it should, delays everywhere, and always being told, "Just 5 minutes" when in actuality it was going to take a lot longer.

But, I'm home now. I got in at 10:30am, 55 hours after I left Mysore. I'm so glad to be back. I leave for Chicago on Thursday. I'll be writing a final retrospective post soon.